They spoke little on the drive back to Paris. What was there to say, Anouk thought, except I’m sorry?
I’m sorry, Hunter Black.
I’m sorry, Cricket.
I’m sorry, Luc, and Tenpenny, and all the Goblins who died.
I’m sorry to you, Beau, and to me—because I can’t stop midnight.
That damn black-cat clock was still ticking away on the dashboard, and somewhere around Grenoble, Beau grabbed it with his good hand and threw it out the window. Anouk said nothing. She was glad to see it go. No more clocks. No more ticking. She didn’t want to know the countdown to the end. If this was truly it, then she wanted to spend their last night free of the weight of time. She wanted to curl up in an enormous bed full of soft pillows, just Beau and her and Viggo—if Viggo was okay—and drink Mada Vittora’s champagne and drape herself in diamonds and kiss Beau and, oh yes, kiss Beau. That most of all.
She squeezed the franc-coin necklace, keeping it safe in her fist.
When she’d dropped a coin in the fountain at the end of Rue des Amants, she’d made a wish to keep them safe. Had the coin worked? Or had it been her whisper in the closet that had protected them? Or perhaps simply luck?
But a coin was all she had now.
She leaned forward, looked up through the windshield at the moon.
“We’re almost there,” Beau said, as though reading her worries. “We’ll make it before midnight.”
They entered the city, and Paris didn’t disappoint. The clouds had lifted, and the night was velvety black and beautiful. The more she saw of Paris, the more dreamlike it was; she wasn’t sure where the streetlights ended and the stars began. She leaned her head against the cool window, watching the blocks roll by one by one. Cafés and boutiques. Pharmacies and patisseries. And above the shops, lights were on in apartments where families watched television, and couples snuggled on sofas, and mothers taught their daughters to cook coq au vin.
She pressed the pads of her fingers to the glass, wanting to touch the city, to taste it, to know all there was to know about everything in the world.
They passed a church with a spotlighted spire that drew her eye up, up, to the very top, where a clock presided over the streets.
She jerked upright abruptly: She couldn’t help but see the time.
“Beau. It’s ten minutes to midnight.”
The Aston Martin purred beneath them as he whipped around corners, dodging other cars with an easy grace. And then the houses were more familiar; she recognized that gabled rooftop. That dented mailbox. They were on Rue des Amants.
Beau started to park and Anouk was out of the car before they’d even fully stopped. She ran around to his door, threw it open, and tugged him out, away from the house and toward the far end of the lane.
“Where are you going?”
With her other hand, she clutched her franc necklace. “The fountain.”
An odd look crossed his face, and then his eyes fell to the coin and a kind of heartbroken sadness filled them as he realized what she hoped—foolishly—to do. “Anouk . . .”
“It might work, Beau.”
“It might not.”
“But it might.”
The street lamp threw a halo of light over his face. A face she knew nearly as well as her own—full lips that were like heaven to touch, his almost too-big nose, sandy hair that had a way of curling in the damp. His features were heavy with doubt. But then, little by little, the doubt melted away. Before her eyes, he became just a boy again.
He grinned. “All right. Screw it. Let’s make a wish.”
Hand in hand, they ran for the wishing fountain at the end of the lane. Past the townhouses Anouk had stared at dreamily through the windows. Past a tiny bulldog with big ears and an even bigger bark. Their feet skidded as they ducked into the fountain alleyway.
It was darker here, away from the streetlights.
Blue-black shadows encased the fountain; starlight reflected on the tinkling water. The gargoyle spat water into the pool, that mischievous half smile on his face, the one that had once repulsed her but now filled her with affection.
She pulled the necklace over her head. How much time was left? Three minutes? Two?
“Just one coin,” Beau said. “So it’ll work for only one of us.”
“I know,” she breathed. “It’s for you. You’re going to stay human.”
Even in the shadows, she could see his expression harden. He reached for the coin, though she held it just out of reach. “No. Anouk, no. It’s going to be you.”
She scrambled back, fiercely guarding the coin. “Forget it, Beau. I couldn’t save the others but maybe I can save you.”
She extended her arm over the pool, the coin clutched in her hand, but he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her away from the water. Let him try to stop her. She’d throw herself into the fountain if she had to. His breath brushed her neck as they scuffled. His arm pressed into her ribs.
He was reaching, but not for the coin.
His fingers closed around one of the few roses still in bloom that hugged the edge of the fountain, and before she could grasp what he was about to do, he popped it into his mouth.
“I know only one spell,” he breathed. “But right now it’s the only one I need.”
An awful premonition struck her. “Beau, no—”
“Dorma, dorma, sonora precimo.” For the first time, his pronunciation was perfect. It was quiet. It was powerful. He’d mastered the damn sleeping spell in the one single moment when she wanted him to make a mistake.
Blackness came first, crackling like ash.
Then a feeling of falling.
His arms around her, lowering her to the ground, and the smell of roses on his breath.
Lips pressed to her cheek.
And then she heard it—a splash of a coin—followed by the most awful words in the world.
“I wish for Anouk to stay human forever.”
In the distance, bells rang out from the church they’d passed on the corner, each chime impossibly loud, impossibly heavy, as though the bells were weighed down by devils.
Bong.
Bong.
Bong.
And then more bells came from more churches on different blocks, tolls that broke the beautiful night with crashing, gnashing, deafening sounds. Twelve chimes. Even long after the bells had stopped, their vibrations traveled throughout the city, straight into the little alley at the far end of Rue des Amants.
Midnight had come at last.